Carmel Tunnels
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The Carmel Tunnels are a set of road tunnels currently under construction in and around Haifa, Israel. The tunnels' purpose is to reduce road congestion in the Haifa area and to provide an alternate route of reaching the eastern part of the city, Haifa Bay and the Kerayot area to and from Israel's central coastal plain without having to travel through traffic-congested downtown Haifa, having to drive up and across the Carmel Mountain or bypassing Haifa from the east, along the edge of the Jezreel Valley (via Highway 70 for example).
The entire project is 6.5km long, including two 4.7km long tunnels (for eastbound and westbound traffic) containing two lanes of traffic in each tunnel. The tunnels are being bored in the Carmel Mountains, essentially under the city of Haifa and will have three portals: one from the west, near the MATAM business park (with a connection to the Coastal Highway and the Old Haifa-Tel Aviv Highway), and two from the east, one from Rupin Road and one leading to the Kerayot interchange. When completed, driving in the tunnel will require paying a toll.
The project's expected completion is in late 2010. The winning tender for the construction of the tunnels was awarded back in 1997 but problems associated with the financing for the project and citizen objections delayed the actual start of construction by about 10 years.
Six hundred Chinese workers have been brought in for the project which was delayed just one week after the cornerstone was laid in April 2007, following concerns over electromagentic radiation standards.[1] Work finally resumed on June 19, 2007.
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